Introducing “Holoport” Locomotion
One of the biggest challenges in VR is locomotion. How do we navigate around a large virtual space without feeling sick?
A widely used solution is teleport, allowing a user to instantly move from point A to B. Teleport removes sim sickness from the equation but makes multiplayer experiences a little more challenging, in that these experiences need to be designed around the teleport mechanic. In addition, users will see other players popping around the environment, making player interaction nearly impossible while locomoting. Various tweaks make multiplayer + teleport a viable option (a time delay between teleports, a trail to show where a player has traveled, a ghost of where the player is going to teleport to), but the gameplay will still need to be designed around this mechanic.
VRChat is made up a wide variety of user created worlds, each of which may have a different kind of gameplay mechanic. We don’t want to restrict creators to a single locomotion mechanic but also don’t want to make players sick. We’ve done a lot of experimenting with various locomotion schemes and have settled on one we think gives players the best of both worlds. We call it Holoport locomotion.
A Different Solution
Holoport locomotion (very similar to Convrge’s ghosting) allows a player to control their avatar from a 3rd person perspective using either an xbox or hand controller. Once the avatar is in the desired position, the player’s camera will teleport back into their avatar. The achievement here is that while holoporting, it looks to other players (and potential bots) as if you are smoothly moving from point A to B, although your camera is staying still. You can also interact with items while holoporting.
We still provide a free-mode locomotion scheme for those users that are immune to sim sickness. The time it takes to get from point A to B in both free-mode and holoport locomotion is the same. This levels the playing field in various experiences.
We also offer option to rotate your avatar to match the 3rd person avatar’s rotation, upon teleportation. However, this seems to be disorienting to many users.
Every locomotion scheme has its trade-offs.
Holoport positives:
- reduces sim sickness
- lets us feel like players are not popping all over the place
- keeps a consistent velocity (time from point A to B is always the same)
- allows us to interact with items in the world while locomoting
Holoport negatives:
- players may not actually be where they appear to be since avatars are controlled remotely
- it isn’t obvious where the mic and ears should be for players (the remote avatar or local player camera?)
- interacting with items in the world while locomoting is possible, but challenging
We believe Holoport is the best of both worlds and will allow our users the freedom to effortlessly explore and interact in VRChat. We’re excited to get our community’s feedback and continue iterating on this locomotion scheme.
Let us know what you think! Download the new version of VRChat at http://www.vrchat.net. Release notes can be found at http://www.vrchat.net/release-notes/client/0.10.0.
